Gadgets that Improve Safety in the Home

Every year thousands of new products are developed specifically to address home safety concerns. The best of these eventually make it to the masses. Your home should not be without these five.

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Gadgets should make life easier. These gadgets not only do so, they make it safer as well. Some of them may be familiar while others may be new to you; all of them can help you avert potentially disastrous accidents in the home.

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Induction Cook Top

The stove is one of the most dangerous appliances in the home. With open flame or heating elements that reach high temperatures, there is potential for serious burns. Accidentally touching a hot element can cause instant third-degree burns and open flames can ignite loose clothing. The induction cooktop was designed specifically to combat these concerns. As well as being a far safer method of cooking, induction is more energy efficient than traditional stovetop burners.

An induction cooktop works using an electromagnetic coil that causes a magnetic field to enter the cookware. The electrical reaction then causes the atoms in the pan to vibrate rapidly and produce heat. The heat is then transferred to the food in the pan. Once the pan is removed from the cook top the heat immediately stops. This means there is no heat produced unless cookware is in direct contact with the cooktop, so there is no chance of accidental burn. There is no flame either. The Max Burton Induction Cook Top runs about $70 and handles pans up to 10 ½ inches in diameter. It is perfect for the home, dorm room or road trips.

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Dyson Air Multiplier

What did your mother always tell you about that fan in your room? Don’t stick your finger in there or you will chop it off. That has been the major problem with rotary fans since their inception. The engineers at Dyson have eliminated the risk of this potentially devastating injury by removing the blades. Yes, a fan with no blades. It is the safest fan you could ever own, and cleaning it is a breeze as well. There is no need to remove the cage and wipe down individual blades. You can wipe down the entire unit with a single cloth in about 15 seconds. At $329, it is about ten times cheaper than the surgery to reattach a finger.

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Smooth Edge Can Opener

Have you ever cut your finger open on a sharp can lid? I have. One of my favorite home safety gadgets is the smooth edge can opener. The Hamilton Beach Smooth Touch opens the can by cutting around the side instead of the traditional cutting of the top. This eliminates having to grab the can lid before it falls into the can and keeps you from cutting your fingers. The best thing about this particular opener is that the blade never touches the food on the inside of the can where several other models do. If you have owned one of those you know all too well about the crusty mess that can accumulate on the cutting blade. The Hamilton Beach model addressed this brilliantly and is therefore one of the most sanitary openers on the market.

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Shake Flashlight

Safety at home means being prepared for emergencies such as power outages. We rarely think about things like flashlights until we need them. Traditional flashlights often become nothing more than tombs for dead batteries offering little or no use in our time of need. Cue the shake flashlight. This ingenious little gadget runs on a capacitor system that is built into the device. A simple 30-second shake will produce enough power to run the flashlight for up to six minutes. The hybrid quality of the Freedom Flashlight allows you to use either the capacitor driven internal battery or the secondary lithium battery.

You will never trip over that sideboard during a thunderstorm again. The shake flashlight gets my approval for awesome safety gadget that everyone should own. At $5.99, you can get one for each bedroom, the kitchen, the basement, the car or anywhere else you might happen to be when the lights go out.

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First Alert Explosive Gas/Carbon Monoxide Alarm

Carbon Monoxide poisoning is the number one cause of accidental poisoning deaths in the United States. This is because most of the time the initial symptoms seem very much like the flu. Carbon monoxide is odorless, tasteless, colorless gas that without a carbon monoxide detector there is no way to detect. This “gadget" falls into the lifesaving category. The First Alert Explosive Gas and Carbon Monoxide detector is a battery backed unit that will detect any natural gas, propane, methane or carbon monoxide threat. A warning bell will sound if the levels of any of these gases become dangerous. There will also be a visual readout on the display.

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Any of these products will bring a higher measure of safety to your home making it the safe haven it is meant to be. Remember, these are only five of the hundreds of possible products you can get for your home. If you know of one that you think we should know about, drop me a line.